


This Raw and Secret Joy

by plant_boi_potter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Burnout Hermione, Christmas & New Years, Crime Solving, F/F, Kissing, Magical Paintings, Ministry of Magic, Swearing, falling in love way too fast, muggle literature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25701769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plant_boi_potter/pseuds/plant_boi_potter
Summary: Hermione seems to be having the worst time of her life and her only solace is the easel in the Black Family attic.If only life could be so simple that she could just wake up at noon and paint. Alas, it never is. Her only solace: at least she’s not working for Rita Skeeter.
Relationships: Background Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy - Relationship, Hermione Granger/Pansy Parkinson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	This Raw and Secret Joy

**Author's Note:**

> Recently found out how to use an em-dash correctly and this is the product of that. Enjoy.

“With everything… buying them christens presents felt weird.”

Hermione and Ron broke up just after the second mortgage payment went through. They’d gotten a cosy little cottage not far from Ron’s family - which, in hindsight, may have been a bad idea.

“ _Expensive_ and weird.” Hermione corrected.

She had tried explaining all of this to Harry over brunch. (It would have been breakfast but given Harry’s tendency of getting up at increasingly later times, it hadn’t worked out like that, at all).

“Don’t get me wrong I love the Weasley’s, it’s just disarming at times. They’ve been like my family for so long and when the lines with Ron and I blurred…” she sighed shortly. “I really thought I loved him.”

Harry nodded, looking like he was trying very hard to be stealthy as he wiped butter down the leg of his jeans.

She ignored him, instead focusing on wheedling her fork into her french bread eyeing the jar of jam on the table before deciding against it, lest Harry ask her to take some home.

“I still like Ron. Just not in the way I thought I did. Ignoring the hormones, there was a war, you know. Even saying it out loud, it still feels unbelievable. It’s like I’m watching a film, almost. It’s all so unreal.”

Harry just hummed in agreement before jamming another piece of toast in his mouth. He swallowed before pointing his butter knife at her accusingly. “You still live with him so that has to be something.”

“Harry we bought a house. Do you know how big a deal that is? A debt is a debt, galleons or pounds. Even if I didn’t want to live with him I’m too mindful of whatever happens next, you know me. It just wouldn’t feel right leaving him with that type of bill, especially on his salary.”

Ron was working at the Owl Post Depository, and seemingly hating every minute of it.

He’d told Hermione the next job offer he got he’d take it. It didn’t matter if it was Magical Dumpster Maintenance—he just really hated owl shit. 

“And you didn’t think about all of this before you put down the deposit.”

He had a point.

Hermione thought a moment before answering. “Well, we thought we were in love. We’d been together for what we naively believed was a long time and we had actually known each other for-” she did a quick tally, “six years. We thought we were going to be the next Bill and Fleur.”

Hermione eyed the jam again, eventually shrugging her shoulders and taking it, revelling the satisfying pop of a broken seal.

“I also didn’t think I’d lose every job I ever had. Come on, I’m Hermione Granger. The _Brightest_ Witch of Her Age.” She put the open jam down in favour of air quotes. 

“That must have been a blow.” Harry acknowledged. “But some people just aren’t cut out for all that office tediousness.”

“Easy for you to say Mr. White Collar.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “I dunno try painting, or yoga, or moaning less.”

Hermione gave him a withering look.

Harry shuddered as he watched his best friend close her eyes as she listened to another jam opening.  
  
“You’re so weird sometimes, you know. So what’re you going to do, about the house?”

“We’re talking about leasing the other bedrooms. I know Ron’s happy with the idea, or at least that’s what he says. He doesn’t want to move back in with his parents, for every reason under the sun, but he doesn’t mind being near them because they are his family, after all.”

“Where would you go?”

He sounded so sad when he said it that Hermione had to refrain from squeezing his arm, as if it was Harry looking for an apartment and not her.

“I was only asking because, well… I’d love to have you here but…” Harry took a breath, a nervous laugh threatening to break free, she could see it from the way his mouth twitched. “I mean I’m dating and… yeah”

Hermione’s mouth dropped open before she could school it into resistance. “Oh Harry! I wouldn’t dream of...”

She pushed herself off the barstool she’d been sat on before making her way around the new kitchen island Harry had erected. “I know I just… I don’t know if it’ll last. You know how it is.”

“That’s wonderful!” She threw her arms around him, her ponytail snapping in its elastic to hit him in the face. Hermione, of course, didn’t really have time to be embarrassed.

“I would have found time to warn you but I was looking for a flat. I had to cancel because… well, just in case you know.” It came out in a rush because she couldn’t care less about the flat any more.

“Grab the wine, we are celebrating.”

“‘Mione?”

“Yes?”

“It’s 11.30.”

She blinked at him.

“In the morning.” Harry reminded her gently as they made their way to the living room.

“It’s Christmas!” She countered.

•••

She left with a new hair tie and promises of a party at some later date. She’d find a way to pull it off, she promised herself as she spelled the stretchy cotton into her hair, shrugging at the flyaways that curled at her brow. At least someone got a happy ending.

“Oh, shit.” Hermione said in a resigned voice as an owl swooped low overhead, letting a piece of yellow parchment drift into her hands.

The parchment itself was folded into quarters but the unmistakable seal of the ministry flared up at her.

Underneath, in a smaller typeface read:

Improper Use of Magic Office.

Rolling her eyes, Hermione stuck the paper in her back pocket before finding the nearest apparition point.

Ron asked why she hadn’t just used Harry’s floo the moment she appeared in the sitting room.

“Because I’m an idiot, Ron.” She waved the paper as if it was a damning piece of evidence to back her argument.

The Trace was more commonly known to be used when presenting documents on cases of underage magic but the wizarding world seemed to be branching out in the ways of Muggles, in some aspects at least, since what she was holding was almost akin to a parking ticket.

“What did you do?” He looked away from the paper that was parked in his lap.

Hermione settled onto the carpet as she started taking off her shoes, undoing the laces in the quick, methodical way that she always did. “I put my hair up in a Muggle estate.” Her nose wrinkled as if the very thought of it was preposterous.

“You got a fine because you were too lazy to tie your hair the Muggle way.” Ron used air-quotes around the word Muggle before flipping open the paper again. “Hey look at this!”

“What?” Hermione said in an almost mulish tone as she sat next to him on their plush sofa, tucking her legs neatly underneath her. “Is it another ad for competitive broom care?”

“Oh don’t. Skeeter’s been advertising her new brand of silencing charm.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “So…” she prompted.

“George wants me down at the shop.”

“That’s great, Ron!”

The moment she’d finished her sentence she noticed he was scratching the back of his ear - a nervous habit he’d picked up when he was young, thanks to Bill readjusting his earring constantly.

“It’s an invite for a _Permanent Arrangement._ ”

Hermione wrinkled her nose. “Don’t say it like that, please.”

“Okay, yeah it did sound a bit porny.” Ron stuck his tongue out in disgust before descending on her with a zigzag throw cushion.

She swatted at the fabric halfheartedly before abruptly sitting up, back ramrod straight. “Ron, I won’t be able to afford this on my own.”

She gestured uselessly at the living room.

“Put an ad in the Prophet or something—pin a poster on that bulletin in the Leaky! The spare room can be rent space.”

“That’s great Ron but I’m still grappling with the fact that would have been a baby's room. Our baby's room. It’s like a reminder of everything we could have been.”

“Oh.”

Pulling her knees up to her chest Hermione sighed as she felt her world get a little smaller.

“You’re really feeling it, huh?” Ron couldn’t quite conceptualise what it was but that didn’t seem to matter to Hermione—who merely nodded.

“I already did the maths—now I have all this spare time…” Hermione tucked a straying curl behind her ear.

“You didn’t tell me.” It came out as a question. He spoke softly, trying again. “You didn’t tell me it was getting hard.”

“I didn’t think it’d be important.” She thought for a moment before correcting herself. “I didn’t think it’d be a problem. Until now, obviously. I thought if I could just get through Christmas… all it did was blot it out.”

Her halfhearted laugh fell dead at Ron’s feet.

“Oh. Well, I’m sure we can work something out. Hey, maybe you could even crash at Harry’s for a while, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

“I wouldn’t want to impede on his life though.”

“You mean my sister?”

Hermione nodded glumly, leaning forward to rest her chin between her knees.

Ron let out a guffaw, trying to conceal it behind his hand. “Gin broke up with him. A week before tryouts too.”

“It just keeps getting better and better doesn’t it?” She huffed into her hands. “Tryouts was a month ago.”

“Yeah, didn’t he tell you?”

“No. Sort of? He said he was dating. I just assumed he’d gotten back with Gin. They were on and off for a while.”

“Oh, okay.. I don’t want to get in his business…”

“I know Ron, you don’t have to explain, I just wish he could confide in me.”

“Your going through a lot”. He said it like a balm, smoothing it over her skin, skin cracked by whatever poison she’d steeped Harry in. He didn’t trust her with something and it hurt like hell.

A minute later Hermione’s hair elastic snapped again.

“Oh come on!”

•••

“I think the universe is trying to tell you something.” Harry joked, parking a cup of tea on the flat armrest of his sofa where Hermione was currently curled, the Prophet folded lengthways across her lap.

“Are you not in the least bit upset? I mean, this is your whole life.”

Hermione nodded to the crowded cabinet where photographs jostled for space. Her eyes specifically alighted on one where he was leaning down to kiss Ginny on the forehead, her red hair now grazing her clavicle.

Harry shook his head, sinking down on the sofa next to his deflated friend. “That-” he nodded to the photo, “is not my whole life. Or Ginny’s. Forgive me but you sound like the Prophet.” Harry mimicked fainting from shock, his hand brushing across his brow.

“ _Future Harpies’ star chaser breaks it off with Boring Ministry Employee, whatever will she do?!’_ ” Sobering up, he looked at her with a single raised eyebrow.

Hermione sighed heavily. Maybe this was why he didn’t want to talk about his dating life.

•••

“I’m sorry, Harry. I’ve just been staring at the bloody thing for the last week. I think I’m going insane. I tried placing an ad in the Quibbler but it didn’t get traction from anyone reliable, or anyone able to stay at the place for more than a month out of the whole year. But I don’t want to have to face that woman either.” Hermione jabbed a finger at the page from which Rita Skeeter’s smarmy likeness smiled falsely.

She looked older than she did when Hermione had trapped her in a jar but it was still the same woman, roller-curled and pink lipped.

“You can crash here.” Harry shrugged like it was a no-brainier.

“I already see way too much of you as it is. And you said you were looking for a flat.”

“Ouch.” Harry pretended to be offended as he nudged Hermione to drink her cooling tea. 

“It’s not a sure thing yet. And you mean more to me than… all that. I’m not going to dump you on the side of the road just because I’m not fucking you.” He tried to lighten the mood by laughing but it fell flat.

“I can barely afford rent at the cottage and that’s somewhat smaller than… this place.”

Grimmauld Place wasn’t exactly unmanageable in terms of two magic users and a house elf it was just so foreboding. She’d say it was cursed, if she were inclined to throw words around like they meant nothing.

The memory of Cruciato sizzling up and down her arm like the ghost of an electrocution.

She grabbed hold of her forearm, placing it on the side of the sofa. It stung. Hard and fast through layers of poly-cotton-wool.

The brand was as clear as the sun streaming through the front windows, and burning just as brightly. She wouldn’t be staying here long. It still had the Black Family stink.

“Alright?”

“Yes, thank you.” Hermione didn’t take pity and Harry didn’t give it. She picked up her tea. “So?”

“Thirty percent of whatever Gringotts gives you.”

“Don’t remind me.” Hermione put her tea down after scarcely taking a sip so she could rub her forehead, dipping her fingers into the slow appearing wrinkles that lurked there. “I hate living like this.”

She didn’t think she looked down on people on welfare before, but that was before she was on welfare.

Before Harry could say anything, she rushed to defend herself. “It’s different with Ron’s family.”

“Mhm.” Harry mumbled into his mug.

“Harry.”

“I’m listening.”

“Both of my _Muggle_ parents had high ranking jobs”—she spat the word Muggle like it had personally offended her, which, in retrospect, it probably did, it had caused her so much pain that some days, she wished she’d been born to a different family. It would have been easier.

As soon as she thought that she hated herself instantly, apologising to the parents who couldn’t hear her. Who didn’t care to. 

_She_ had made them that way.

She shook her head, breathed out.

“They went to conferences and had _executive meetings_.” This time it was air quotes that came out.

“If you sent your bright, comfortably middle class child to the most prestigious wizarding school in the world how would you expect her to come out of that? Not on subsidy that’s for damn sure. They gave me everything and I threw it back in their face.”

“You didn’t throw anything in their face, it’s not a fault that you're a witch and it’s not your fault that that school doesn’t teach you practical skills. Wizard or not, what place doesn’t teach maths! I can’t believe Hermione Granger spent years fighting against a corrupt government only to not realise it’s still, at its base level, corrupt.”

“You work there!” She shot back, quick as a whip.

“Part time! And so does Pansy Parkinson!”

As if that made it any better.

”If anything’s still off about that place I bet it has something to do with her.”

Hermione huffed, taking another sip of tea to calm herself down enough to speak. It was impossible. 

•••

She’d tried meditation. And Pilates. And cooking. The last one had almost burned the house down.

“That’s it,” Harry had said as he opened the kitchen windows, coaxing the smoke from the room with a tea towel.

Hermione had been expecting to end up on the street. But it hadn’t happened. Instead Harry led her up to the attic, a world away from unpaid rent and Rita Skeeter’s condescending face.

The wood was scuffed and bare, but tidy. A small window opened in the roof so light could spill easily onto the easel below.

“Don’t say I don’t do anything for you.” Harry laughed.

•••

She’d been hunched for hours and the scene before her was haunting. Reds and blacks and golds whisking around the page to make a semi-ethereal piece.

Harry knocked before crawling up from the hole in the floor, leaning against a box he’d shoved aside when he finally managed to pull his legs into the rafters. “Are you ready to talk now?”

“Surprisingly, yes”.

Hermione sat on the floor, crossing her legs as she did so. Harry coaxed a cup into her hands. 

The tone she used was low and somber when she started to speak again.

“Do you know why my parents were acting all wide-eyed and weird when they were at Gringotts?”

“Muggles are just like that. Goblins and foreign currency.” Harry shrugged.

“No, Harry. Currency exchange exists in London. Don’t tell me you’re that dense.”

She was at the point of grinding her teeth together before she caught herself.

“They paid my way through seven years of school. Including one whole year when I wasn’t even attending the Godforsaken place.

The canvas was missing something. More gold. She flicked her paintbrush with abandon as she talked. “I wasn't witch enough to get in on good merit alone..”

“But I can’t imagine the Dursley’s paying for my education. Sure they wanted me out of the house but not that much. I just can’t imagine…”

“Neither can I.” Hermione said, her voice sharp and flat at the same time.

•••

They spent the next half an hour staring idly at the TV screen, taking sips of their tea so slowly it ended up lukewarm, congealing sugar sticking to the bottom of identical mugs.

“I think we found your niche.” Harry says, nodding at the drying paper pinned to the curtain rail.

The lightning was off centre and the rain didn’t flow the right way but Hermione smiled nonetheless as she watched the dying sun bounce off the mirror behind their heads, bathing the room in a muted golden glow.

“Yes. I think we have.”

•••

“Right, I’m off to work. Just bell the front office if you need me. Make sure you use your name of they’ll think you’re a crazy fangirl.”

Hermione nodded, her sleep crusted eyes blinking rapidly as she tried to shake herself awake as inconspicuously as possible. Her hair was a mass of ringlets, the tight curls flowering around her head like dark cotton.

A red mark was slashed across her cheek. “Sleep well?” Harry laughed as he caught sight of her for the first time amongst all the rushing.

“Yes. Now, leave or you’re going to be late.” She was practically pushing him out of the door, the difference in attire was striking.

She had to capture it.

Harry, for once in his life, looked good. His uniform fit him well and the block colour brought out his eyes. Possibly the courtesy of a new alarm clock and a comb.

Hermione… was in a dressing gown. Old and tatty, the fabric was a washed out pink, some patches darker than others. The string around her waist hung limp and frayed.

She grimaced.

“You look beautiful. I really have to go.”

And with that Harry was out the door, not bothering to lock it as he raced down the street to look for the nearest loo to step in.

•••

Hermione was left alone at last. Her shoulders deflated, smile slipping she opened yet another rejection letter from yet another job.

“ **Your reference cited no field work**.” This one had the audacity to comment.

“I fought a _war_.” Hermione yelled at the unassuming parchment before snapping her fingers to get the fire blazing. “I’m a _witch_.” She muttered through clenched teeth as the re-rolled rejection was tossed into the fireplace.

The self-satisfaction that came with destruction lasted all of three minutes before she collapsed on the sofa, shoulders shaking.

The Prophet lay folded on the arm of the sofa where it had been left. Rita Skeeter’s smug face staring back at her. “No way.” Hermione said before turning the paper over.

The Sport: Illustrated page stared up at her, the centre Quidditch player tilting his head so her could give the camera a wink.

“Oh you have got to be kidding me.”

•••

“Viktor Krum is in the paper again?”

“Unfortunately. How was work?” She wanted to get the image of her laughing ex out of her mind. Scrub the image of his success until it smudged and broke.

Harry shrugged as he spooned pasta into the white wine sauce. “Same old really.”

He settled into his seat at the kitchen table, Hermione across from him. The rest of the table laid barren as they squished dishes of vegetables in between one another.

“They asked me to train some new recruits, which means I’m exempt from the usual paperwork just to be handed another set of paperwork.”

“I could do it.” Hermione pointed her fork at him.

Harry left the table only to potter needlessly around the kitchen in an effort to look busy. “I’m not sure ‘Mione. I mean, I’d love you to do all this for me but you’re not…”

“Qualified.” Hermione finished irritably. She pushed her food around her plate before giving up pretending to eat.

She eventually pushed her chair back, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Harry I don’t know if you know this but I need experience to have a job and a job to gain experience, so either you are going to train me to do this secretarial lark or I’m going to be sleeping on your sofa for the next month.”

Harry shot her a half smile before backing out of the kitchen. “I’ll see what I can do.”

•••

The office was intimidating; slim, high windows, solid oak desks and hardwood floors that echoed on the heel.

If it weren’t for the overhead lamps and the parchment lined walls she could imagine herself being held captive here.

Hermione shifted uneasily in her regulation skirt, longing for the neat press of Primary School slacks.

“Hello nineteen fifty.” She muttered as she surveyed the space and the aforementioned dress code that had been unsurupticiously pinned to the single glass door pane.

The door scraped against the floor behind her as it moved from the laminate in the hall.

“You’ll find the emergency book in the cabinet behind you. Don’t go in the last drawer, I’ll go through your training whenever I can spare the time”

Hermione turned around fast enough to be eye level with a white pug nose and pale cheeks. She didn’t have to look up to recognise the voice.

“What are you doing here?”

“Hello to you too, Parkinson.”

“I thought you’d be halfway to becoming Minister by now. Lord you had the self-satisfaction for it.”

“Wouldn’t you know?” Hermione grumbled as she fixed her gaze directly on the round toes of Pansy’s shiny black heels.

“They don’t tell me anything these days darling, you know how it is.” Pansy waved a hand dismissively as she stalked towards a large desk nudged just in front of the stacks of scrolls.

Pansy looked just as Hermione remembered except now she was taller, with more roundness on her hips and bust. Her A-line bob was just the same except she’d clearly had the ends feathered—possibly by a real bird—but Hermione was woe to ask.   
  
She’d expected Pansy to be more nosey about it all. She was aware she was measuring Pansy against her old self but hadn’t Pansy done the same?

Studying the woman at the desk before her, Hermione made her descision: “I’d rather be stuck with you than Rita Skeeter.”

Pansy actually snorted at the proclamation. “Touché. She’s a Slytherin through and through, that one, and since the Prophet is outsourced by the Ministry… let’s just say it wouldn’t do us any good to be put in an unfavourable light.”

Hermione came to know two things: being alone in a room made Pansy quite chatty; and she, herself was no good at her job.

Pansy was more patient than Hermione had ever seen her. She was obviously in her element, correcting Hermione’s mistakes almost before she made them.

Owls were the worst. While dictating mail via QuickQuotes quill, Hermione usually managed to make herself nervous: how many exclamation marks is too many? How do I stress this point without underlining it so sharply the quill cuts through the page?

“So, what’s your thing?”

“My thing?” Hermione felt like she’d been thrown headfirst into a lake.

Pansy did that to her. She wasn’t sure whether she did it intentionally. Or, indeed if she did it to other people. Personally, it got under Hermione’s skin.

“Well you clearly hate it here.” Pansy nodded to the waste paper basket and Hermione’s feet, the mind of broken quills lying at the bottom like bird beaks.

“Sorry we aren’t all as passionate about filing cabinets as you are.” Hermione pushes the bun under her desk. “I just need to make rent and pay off the mortgage. You know, things that require that trust fund I don’t have.”

“Filing cabinets are useful! Also you and the weasel broke up? Wow. Didn’t see that coming. You didn’t answer my question.”

”Don’t call him that. We’re still friends.”

”Of course you are.” Pansy rolled her eyes.

That’s when Hermione had started doodling, some of which ended up on important letters. She crossed her fingers, hoping the goblins at Gringotts wouldn’t notice her sketch of a dog at the end of yet another bank report. 

“We can’t always just pretend a relationship was nothing because Malfoy dumped us.” 

“Darling, Draco’s gay.”

”Oh.” Hermione pressed her lips into a fine line. _Just because he’s gay doesn’t mean I have to like him.  
  
_

_Or_ you. She looked at Pansy with steely eyes but Pansy didn’t seem to notice, which almost made her angrier. 

•••

“You know what Hermione? I’d pay for one of them.” Pansy jabbed an acrylic nail down on the accumulating stack of drawings. “You might be bats at secretarial work but those are…”

Pansy made a noise that might have been a wolf whistle. Hermione rolled her eyes before actually peering at the stack.

Somewhere in the hectic rush of day to day life, her pile had been rearranged; a headshot of a bob and green eyes.

She could try to pass it off at being anyone but Pansy’s smile was so wide and open, she did the next best thing: snatch the paper, crumpling it into a ball before throwing it at Pansy’s head.

•••

“How was work then?”

Harry had finished his shift earlier than usual and watched bemused as Hermione flung herself through the front door with such force Harry would have assumed she was being chased by dementors.

She struggled with her coat buttons, eventually just yanking the thing over her head and tossing it on the coat rack. She tossed her shoes off in the same manner, padding into the kitchen in her soft nylons.

“Harry they are going to fire me.”

“Woah. Woah, slow down. Where’s this coming from? Who’s going to fire you?”

“Pansy, the Ministry, the Minister.” She wrung her hands as she spoke, almost whispering the word Minister as if it were a slur.

“I thought you and Pansy were getting on. Merlin knows how or why but who am I to question your taste in people—since you’re stuck with me, I mean.” Harry found that he was waffling, amplifying Hermiones nervous energy instead of surpressing it.

“Oh no.”

She swung a hand and a lightbulb burst into quick flame before puffing out—rendering the path to the wine cellar dark and full of glass.

“Your eyes are the same.” She said to no one in particular. 

“What?” Harry scratched his head as Hermione put her face in her hands, soft curls falling over her shoulders and around her face, gravity fighting for dominance and—for once—succeeding.

A flare of anger made its way down Hermione’s arm and she yelled. Quenching the magic before Harry could notice.

“Can I sit down?”

“Sure…” Harry gestured for her to make herself comfortable while he cleaned up the glass. It felt easier to talk to her when he couldn’t actively see her. “What happened?”

“I’m absolutely crap at my job but you know that already. Doodling helps me concentrate when I’m dictating—especially when I’m dealing with people I actively despise. Well, it seems I fucked up. Because I doodled a girl. A very naked girl. Again. But this time she was on an Owl, meant for the bank.”

Harry covered his mouth with a hand as he tried not to laugh. “Oh ‘Mione that’s a misdemeanour at best. Wait what do you mean again?”

“That’s hardly your business now, is it?”

It is my business because you’re upset and I’m your friend.”

When he put it like that it sounded annoyingly reasonable.

She hated it. And him. And Pansy. And the world. “It’s not your business because it’s apparently not my business who you’re dating.”

”Hermione that’s unfair.”

Hermione crossed her arms.

The word _Draco_ left Harry’s lips like a ghost, so quiet. A translucent word. If you slept on it you couldn’t be sure it had been there at all. 

•••

“Were you in love with Ginny?”

“With… what?” Harry composed himself after getting the initial shock of the question. “I- yes I was. But people grow apart sometimes. I still feel for her, just not in the way I did, you know?”

“I know.” Hermione said softly. And she found that she did know.

•••

“Why did you think you’d be fired?” Harry broached the subject over breakfast. 

“That letter I told you about was for Gringotts. The girl was Pansy. If I haven’t lost my job; she’s lost hers. You need to take your Christmas tree down.” 

“I’m not taking down my tree. Are you sleeping with her?” Harry said it as if it were even a possibility and while Hermione hadn’t really thought about it like that she definitely was now.

“No! Harry!” The matter at hand was not Parkinson. Not directly anyway; she could think about her later.

And she could take the sodding tree down. 

“Gringotts is powerful, and goblins may mistrust wizards but they downright despise Muggles that go sticking their nose in where they don’t belong.”

“How do you know this? I don’t doubt that you do just…” Harry splayed his palms, almost knocking a plate to the floor as he did so.

“Secretary’s know everything. And Pansy is a blabbermouth.”

Harry laughed. “Remind me not to tell her anything then.”

“Sure.” Hermione smiled, digging into a pancake. _Please don’t tell her I’m falling in love with her._

Gringotts and Goblins swirled around in Hermione’s head as she spent her day finishing Harry’s portrait and starting on another.   
  
•••

“Is that why you couldn’t reverse the memory charm on your parents?” They’d discussed the issue at great length. Hermione had let slip that her mum had found the younger Goblins being bribed, thanks to the bank failing to reach it’s currency quota.

“Excuse—Harry you’re a genius!” Hermione’s eyes lit up suddenly—like the glowing lights still wrapped around the lampposts outside. She dashed to get her coat from where it was flung haphazardly over the coat rack.

“I am?”

Harry, bemused as ever, set about making himself a cup of tea, resolving to floo Pansy’s office if Hermione didn’t show up in the morning.

He was left mulling over some things, tea going slowly cold in his hands.

•••

“Did you know about this?” Hermione demanded. She wasn’t surprised to find Pansy working late, her hair pulled off her high forehand and into a half-ponytail.

“Miss Granger, you really should learn to knock.”

“I’m Miss Granger now am I? What changed in the last fifteen minutes?”

“Your temper.” Pansy smiled thinly. “I can’t be seen playing favourites.”

“I’m your only staff Pans!” Hermione’s eyes watered as the weight of everything she’d been holding for weeks crashed onto her.

“Fine. What’s up with you now?”

“The corrupt government?” It came out like a question.

“Oh is that all?”

“How can you be so blasé about this!” Hermione threw her hands in the air. “Oh right, because you’re a Slytherin and you get everything handed to you. That silver spoon is so far up your ass you seem to forget the actual use of cutlery.”

“Your the one throwing a pity party for one every time you walk into my office.”

“Your office? What is this a sole occupancy?” Hermione gestured as best she could, trying to encompass the thousands of staff and hundreds of acres of land they were sat on. Trying to explain to Pansy how she thought she was sat on a mighty high horse while also being under multiple boots. “A golden cage is still a cage.”

”You’re here on your day off!” Pansy started, before noticing the stony look on Hermione’s face. She obviously wasn’t leaving anytime soon. “Hermione I’m not going to lie to you, I’m the position I am due to positive discrimination.” That was the easiest way to put it.

“Positive- I don’t believe this!”

Maybe not.

Pansy watched Hermione pace for a minute or two before asking her to sit down. “Opposite me, if you will.”

“The Ministry had to make a statement about how they weren’t prejudiced toward Slytherins for being Slytherins.”

“You might not have been a Death Eater but you ate with them so you’re as good as.” Hermione was almost spitting her words, her fury tempered only by the chair she was sat on.

Pansy merely nodded. “Look, they refused anyone who actually deserved it. I couldn’t change the place from the outside so I decided to show up. Money talks, even if it’s dirty. You have your passion and I have mine.”

”You accepted employment here do you could play Nancy Drew? You must be out of your mind if you think that would make up for everything you did.”

”I don’t think it’ll change anything I did. What I did can’t be erased, it’s what I do now that matters.”

“You want to change the place from the inside out? Fine. If you mean it, let’s make a deal.” She was still having revelations even as she spoke. “But I don’t trust you.”

“Okay.” Pansy’s lip quirked for an instant. “I really liked the Nancy Drew books. If you have any other Muggle literature I might like you’re welcome to write them down.”

Hermione was really doing this. She was really, _really_ , starting to like Pansy. _Fuck_.

•••

“Did you know my parents knew something? That I hid them with a memory charm in forth year because I knew they were in danger from Lord Voldemort while completely misunderstanding that the Goblins could use it against me.”

“No.” Pansy carefully placed her quill on the table. 

  
“I didn’t know anything about your parents ‘Mione.” She sounded sympathetic, which instantly made Hermione wary. She narrowed her eyes but said nothing.

“Okay so I didn’t know your Muggle parents were Mulder and Scully, Jekyll and Hyde, Sherlock and Watso–.”

“Shut up Pansy. I get it.” Hermione tried to sound affronted but Pansy was grinning, her growing stack of murder-mysteries leaning against the side her desk. 

Pansy dipped her head, her maroon lips pursed as she deliberated her next words. “I think I know what’s happening but I need your help.” Her eyes straying to the locked cabinet behind her desk.

•••

“A party?” Ron frowned.

The Leaky was crowded, voices rising and falling amongst the constant clink of glasses and removal of plates—the place in full Pub Mode.

“Why not?” Hermione smiled genially. “The Ministry’s dull and grey. Anyway, I promised Harry I’d organise one and it’s…”

The door caught as another patron walked in, the draft swirling down the pint-sized corridor to land neatly in Hermione’s lap. She shivered.

“It’s cold.” She finished. It wasn’t the all-encumbering speech she’d planned on giving but it _was_ cold. “Besides it’s nearly New Years.”

“Hermione’s right, you know? It _is_ almost New Year.” Luna placed her hands in her lap.

She looked paler than usual, her platinum hair falling in a single snowdrift down her back, but it was winter and the fire could only reach so far into the room. 

“Come on! For New Years!” George’s voice, probably excited at the prospect of doing irreparable damage to the Atrium. He nudged his shoulder against Ron’s and Ron gave the ghost of a smile.

“What’s with you?”

“Nothing.” Ron nibbled his lip. “Can we bring people?”

Hermione looked at Pansy. “I don’t see why not.”

“Great!” Ron’s voice.

“Maybe I could ask my dad.” Luna’s this time, softer, more hesitant.

Pansy raised her eyebrow in Hermione’s direction. The _does-he-have-a-girlfriend?_ eyebrow raise. Hermione didn’t remember when she became quite so aware of Pansy’s facial features; or when they started having a secret language.

Too much time in the office. Probably.

Or maybe too much time holed up in Harry’s attic, trying to mix together the perfect shade of green.

“Harry will be delighted!” Ron leapt out of his chair and dashed off. But Hermione was so preoccupied she hadn’t noticed.

She registered one thing: Pansy’s fingers were freezing as they snaked around Hermione’s little finger, and Hermione’s face burned as she felt her squeeze it ever so slightly.

Fuck.

She was in love with Pansy Parkinson.

•••

The party took all of an afternoon and a couple hundred wizards to prepare so by the time the getting dressed up bit came around Hermione shrugged a why not when Pansy asked if she wanted to help her pick an outfit so they could flop together.

They did floo together, Pansy in an olive dress with a slit up the front and Hermione in a peach blouse and her work trousers. 

Obviously she had expected Pansy to charge off almost as soon as they landed—she cited something about paperwork—but she hadn’t expected her heart to ache quite so much as it did as she watched Pansy leave.

Hermione was left in the Atrium alone. She spotted Luna, flagging her down for a chat.

“What do you think?” Hermione nodded at the hand painted New Years banners dotted around the place. Fireworks and holiday scenes floating high on the walls, untethered.

“I like them. Do you know the artist?”

Everyone knew Luna was the artist amongst them. Anything good from her was surely worth merit.

Hermione grew shy, fidgeting with the hem of her blouse as she confessed to Luna in two small words. “I painted them.”

Lunas eyes shone a glacial blue as she reached to grab Hermione’s hands, standing on tiptoe so they could be at eye level. “Infused magic. I understand.”

Hermione had started experimenting with elemental magic, (her specialty being fire), but she assumed no one else would notice. That’s what she got for asking a Ravenclaw’s opinion on something.

“They glow. Like you when you look at her.”

Luna drifted off to the buffet table, leaving Hermione speechless.

She eventually forced her legs to move, first slowly, away from the hubbub of the crowd, pretending it was only for the sake of a successful mission. But by the time she reached the stairs she was running, trying to drown out the steady thumping of her heart.

•••

Pansy raced down accented corridors, several files and a dozen sheets of paper clutched to her chest, hoping at least one would be incriminating.

The party was being held in the Atrium but some people still had to work. Unfortunately.

She forced herself to relax her shoulders, striding briskly as if she were supposed to be there. Nothing more incriminating than a criminal fleeing the scene; even if the crime was uncovering a government conspiracy.

A lone worker, as faceless as she, walked past, hunched and tired. He looked at her once, then turned away: Pansy had never been so thankful for her sharp jaw and hard set mouth. It didn’t stop her from pacing faster though.

•••

The Silencing, they’d first called it. Mr Parkinson couldn’t keep his mouth shut; it was where his daughter got it from, he’d joked once at a party, ruffling Pansy’s hair.

Pansy had seethed about it all night.

It was all an under the table job, no legal records kept, obviously. And no Muggle testimony—except, apparently, two Muggles by the names of Mr and Mrs Granger.

She had been vaguely aware of her father coming home late for two weeks straight—he’d missed her birthday—but since he was constantly screaming about _filthy Muggles_ she hadn’t really taken much notice.

Until she saw it published in The Quibbler:

**Goblins trade gold to keep Great Muggle-Born Silence**

Less than a week later the Quibbler printed a retraction and the Prophet made an official announcement that it’s editor in chief, Xenophillius Lovegood was formally retiring.

So Pansy started digging.

She’d been sure Rita Skeeter had something to do with it. She just didn’t have any proof except office mutterings and a few scraps of paper that were accidentally sent to her department, and promptly whisked away again at the drop of a hat. She was this close. But who would believe a Slytherin?

With a Gryffindor by her side she felt like she could achieve anything. She remembered the doubt course through her as Hermione pulled away from her hand in the Leaky; then, just as fast, the feeling of warmth that settled in her stomach as Hermione placed her fingers in Pansy’s, knitting them together like a Cat’s Cradle.

Someone grabbed her by her arm, pulling her into a nearby storage closet.

•••

“Please don’t yell it’s only me.” Hermione whispered as Pansy jumped, sending latent office supplies crashing to the ground.

“You almost gave me a heart attack!”

Hermione was standing still in the half-light of her wand. She’d upended a cardboard box, nodding towards Pansy, who took too long to realise she couldn’t use her wand for multiple purposes.

Pansy transfigured the box into a table. Finally she dumped the papers and files down into two neat stacks.

“Wait.” Hermione proceeded to undo three of her top buttons, untucking half of her blouse. She reached over to ruffle Pansy’s hair and smudge her lipstick a little. “Just in case.”

Pansy hoped the wand light obscured her blush as she bent over to examine the documents before them.

•••

“I’ve found it!”

The missing piece of the puzzle that would tie the mutterings together. Indisputable evidence: a letter from the one of the Ministry higher-ups to Rita Skeeter. 

A transaction was stapled to it; two thousand galleons to become a subdivision of the Ministry. Unofficially, Skeeter was _still_ producing propaganda. But that should have been obvious.

“She was using it to gain support for a Bigger Enterprise apparently.” Pansy read on, grimacing. “You were right about the Goblins keeping the memory charm on your parents.”

“I KNEW IT!” A box of staplers beside Pansy’s head exploded.

“Later. Sh. Listen to this.”

Hermione didn’t have to. “...to help Lovegood ease into early retirement. Slander is only a necessary precaution- she can’t do that!”

The door burst open

•••.

Hermione was a deer in the headlights but Pansy did what any self-respecting woman would: she leaned over the table, scattering documents everywhere so she could grab hold of the front of Hermione’s shirt. She felt electric as her lips clashed with Hermione’s for a nanosecond.

“Shit.” Pansy’s hand flew to her mouth in mock worry as she saw the cleaning attendant take in Hermione’s undone buttons, Pansy’s smeared lipstick.

“We, uh- please don’t tell the department I was just…” Hermione struggled to shape her words, eventually giving up altogether in favour of taking in the blush across Pansy’s nose, the wildness of her fringe.

Although she’d thought about this more times than she cared to admit she’d never seen it so close up and personal. The contours of Pansy’s cheekbones, the pores on her skin.

The attendant coughed.

“That’s quite alright ladies. You’d better get downstairs though, they’ll be missing you. The countdowns in ten minutes.”

The countdown?

New Years Day.

Of course.

“Thank you, sir!” Pansy giggles, making sure to grab the paper she needs before pulling Hermione by the hand towards the Atrium.

•••

They were both out of breath by the time they got to the stairs and Hermione took the opportunity to shrink the parchment, sliding it into her clutch as she headed for the stairs.

“That was some acting back there Granger.”

“Oh.” Hermione smiled as if she didn’t realise how Pansy had become electric. “I don’t act.”

And then she was gone, racing down the stairs, peach blouse disappearing around the corner with Pansy on her heels.

In the distance there was the sound of a megaphone.

_Ten… Nine…_

Pansy decided justice could wait all of ten seconds. As she watched Hermione’s corkscrew curls bounce against her back.

•••

“Where have you been? The countdowns is about to start.” Harry asked, not really taking in her disheveled appearance.

“Last minute work stuff.” Hermione shrugged, but Harry wasn’t looking at her.

She followed his line of sight, only to find Malfoy. As if blonde was the most striking colour on the planet. She rolled her eyes. “Oh I see. No wonder Ron was asking strange questions at the Leaky.”

“What about Ron?” Harry dragged his eyes from Malfoy.

Hermione snorted.

“Is that lipstick?”

Hermione snorted again, wiping at the mauve smudge with the back of her hand before giving up to go and look for Pansy.

_Six… Five…_

Where was she? Hermione knew she had spent too much time talking to Harry. She was becoming frantic.

_Four…_

Green eyes locked with hers and they were running towards one another, each trying to be the first to reach the other one.

The crowd melted away as Hermione placed her hands on Pansy’s cheeks.

_Three… Two…_

And suddenly the crowd was cheering for them. The most unlikely pair, brought together by the most bizarre circumstances.

They could save the world in the morning. It could wait until then.

Hermione was on fire and Pansy was electric. They kissed and the fireworks were only background noise compared to the symphony they’d created.


End file.
